Reddit user, XxFireflyxxX, wanted to hear about:
"ER doctors and nurses of reddit, what is the dumbest cause of injury you've ever seen?"
For Fashion And Protection
"I had a patient come in with lacerations to her fingers. Her blender got clogged and she stuck her hand inside to clear it. She cleared it and the blender resumed....um blending. Luckily, she had long acrylic nails. This helped lessen the impact."
Bornagainchola
GiphyI'd Rather Go To Sleep
"Guy came in after being concerned the bed sheet had stuck to his lower leg. Turns out hed been using a petrol mower the evening before and it had exploded. Full thickness burn to his calf. No pain. He wanted to go home to feed his cows instead of being transferred to burns and plastics. Man it looked like white leather."
DamaskRoses
Why Play Typical Catch?
"Guy was camping with his frat buddies and they were firing air rifles at each other with a baseball glove on."
"The pellet was lodged well into his hand. Like, how did you think this was going to end?"
Milesofstyle
Close Eyes Off From The World
"I was in the ER as a patient next to a guy who was brought in via ambulance because he super glued his eye lids shut."
"He was high as a kite, but so was I from the pain meds I'd been given for my own injury. Whatever meds I was given made me think everything was hilarious. I got yelled at by the nurses for laughing hysterically in the next room. He was being a pain in the a--, ER was on diversion already, and they were not amused."
brubarbal
This One Is Kind Of Sweet, But Use The Mailbox Next Time
"Not really injury, but I had a young man come in in the middle of the night to the ENT ER with a foreign object in his ear. It was a tinnie tiny letter from his girlfriend."
punkrawke
That's Why It's Called A "Dog" Toy
"A few stand out. Person somehow swallowed a spiked dog toy."
"Someone tried to reverse his circumcision by cutting more of his d-ck off with a pair of scissors."
"About every object known to man up the bum. 'if you like it then you shoulda put a string on it.'"
bsn2fnp1
The Science On This Checks Out
"Not a doctor or a nurse, but I work in the ER. We had a guy come in, a 70 yr old. He was disabled, unable to speak or hear. So the nurse had to write everything down for him, all he did was put his hands like horns above his head (devil like horns). Turns out this dude was higher than a kite. He had drank Fabuloso (similar to Pine Sol). Sniffed rat poison. High on meth and cocaine. All he wrote down was that the devil was telling him to do that."
theweirdox
Incarceration Doesn't Mean You Stop Self-Care?
"When I was nursing in prison, I was called to the cell of an inmate who had smuggled Veet into the wing and rubbed it on his balls. He was not a happy bunny. He absolutely refused to say why he had done it but his motivation must have been strong, I mean everyone else was smuggling heroin and mobiles into the prison, but Veet????"
killycarthief
Yeah, But, How?
"I've seen an internal vaginal laceration from someone climbing a fence while trying to see something happening down the street."
midturbinate
GiphyWhich Way Was It Pointing?
"I was once in the [emergency] unit with my then bf. There was a guy with a tiny hole in the middle of his forehead. Nailgun accident..."
Blabsie
Again With The Butt...
"ER Nurse here"
"-We had a girl come in and who knows what she was doing but she had one of the thin glow sticks in her bladder, maybe some fun finger/glow play during a concert? I don't know but pretty wild."
"-Also I had a Spanish speaking only gentleman explain why a shoe polish bottle was in his bum, we had to use a video interpreter due to the language barrier but it's was pretty wild to hear the interpreter say "I have a bottle of polish in my anus" after expecting him to just explain why he had belly pain. We also proceeded to print out multiple pictures of common types of shoe polish he used to ask him if it was "this one or that one". It was hilarious when he identified what one it was based on the picture, he had to go to the OR"
AirFryersRule
These Conspiracy Theories Are Easy to Debunk | George Takei’s Oh Myyy
There are some bizarre conspiracy theories out there. Like Australia isn't actually real... seriously? Any conspiracy theory that requires many people to kee...Sounds Like A College Guy Thing To Do
"Had a university student who ignited a firework in his anus while drunk for the amusement of his buddies. It exploded, causing full thickness burns of his rectum, resulting in him needing a colostomy"
ArcofRiolan
A Complete Lack Of Understanding Of How Sicknesses Work
"Not the dumbest ,but certainly the funniest....for me. So this young kid early 20's comes in triage all panic like and nervous. Chief complaint was Lung infection. We bring him back and before I can even ask him his name hes yappin a mile a min saying hes gana die and hes so stupid. I finally get him to slow down and ask what happen. He just keeps swearing hes got a lung disease."
"long story short his girlfriend had bronchitis and gave him oral sex. she told him after and he freaked out. He wanted us to check his penis for bronchitis. I am trying my hardest not to laugh in his face, bc he was first off dead ass serious and almost in tears. Secondly trying to be professional. So I do the only logical thing. I grab my buddy also a ER Nurse and ask the guy to tell him the story cause its always better to get a second opinion."
"Once he hears the story he starts crackin up, I loose it and this guy is crying saying we dont care if his dick gets bronchitis and falls off. we eventually pull it together and tell him he needs to see a doctor right away!. walked his dumb-ss back to fast track and he was discharged in 10 min. lol fun times. ER triage is sometimes the best free comedy you can get. Cant make this sh-t up."
Dingleberryfarmz
Bums And Chainsaws. You're Going To See A Lot Of Those In The E.R.
"Giant potato. Up the arse. Apparently they were peeling the spuds in the bath tub, naked, got up to answer the doorbell [apparently with the intention to remain naked], slipped on another potato, potato went up bum. Apparently there was 50kg of potatoes in tub, according to his recollection."
"Dude with chainsaw, for whatever reason, was upstairs in house when they decided to fire it up. Save time apparently."
"Tripped down stairs with chainsaw in operation. Lopped arm off. Not sure what the real story was, but the idea of a guy tumbling down a flight of stairs, in a house, with an operating chainsaw, a tad chortle worthy, in that galllows kinda way."
kiwi-potatoes
We're Never Going To Make It As A Species, Are We?
"In addition to the multitude of ass-related banality, there was the guy who tried to kick an obstruction away from the lawnmower while he was using it barefoot. He was lucky they managed to save a bit of his foot."
aquila-audax
Wow...
"Operating theatre - this woman came in with a frozen chicken stuck inside her lady parts. Apparently she had a habit of buying them, inserting them and then pulling them out, as she really had a thing for going through childbirth, but on this occasion, she hadn't allowed time for it to defrost properly /adequately."
Mike_OxonFaier
GiphyDoctors have definitely seen some stuff. Do they want to remember all of it? That's a question only they'll be able to answer, years and years after seeing so many things taken out of so many anuses.
Want to "know" more?
Sign up for the Knowable newsletter here.
Never miss another big, odd, funny or heartbreaking moment again.
Redditor knightfall0 asked:
"Doctors of Reddit, what patient made you go 'How the f*** are you even alive'?"
Depression can kill.
I was on home call for ER in a small town, got a call from the ER nurse one night and she was like 'EMS brought someone in here and they think she might be dead?'" I was like....' ....well, IS she?!'" She was like 'I don't know.'"
....
"This was a seasoned RN, by the way, so I was like, well, guess we're treating this is a Code Blue kind of situation, so without any further information, I jump into my car and rush over to the hospital. Once I got there, I realized why the triage nurse was so confused. In the trauma bay, lay what appeared to be skeletonized remains under a blanket. The person felt warm to touch, so I opened their eye, and a yellow, wrinkled, shrunken eyeball stared at me and then suddenly MOVED. Potassium of 1, for those familiar with lab values."
"The backstory was extreme self-neglect/depression combined with caregiver neglect. Weighed in at 67 lbs at a height of about 5'5". We actually resuscitated her, very aggressively, and unbelievably, after about 8 litres of fluid, she started speaking a word or two at a time and recognized her daughter."
jochi1543
That's pretty metal.
"My father's doctor couldn't believe a) he didn't need to amputate his feet and b) he was still alive. Dad had 'brittle diabetes.' His pancreas would kick in & out due to a congenital deformity. At 82, he had significant heart issues, including angina enlarged heart & clogged arteries. One day, his feet went black. (Not just bluish, or grey; black as charcoal) rushed to emergency. We were told they would amputate, but 'to say our goodbyes.'"
"Dad refused surgery. Said he'd rather be dead, at his age. Hours later, his feet were pink. We took him home that morning. Doctor actually apologized for upsetting us, but said he'd never seen anything like it."
Mumofalltrades63
"Wow. The dude just straight up refused to die and his body was like, 'Alright, jeez, you win.'"
whompmywillow
GiphyWell that's good.
"I have a hospice patient that has been on our service for 4 years. I'm either really great at hospice, or really bad at it."
MeanMrMustard66
"My great grandma went to hospice because she was no longer ambulatory, needed help using the restroom, losing weight, etc. A month in her nurse comes in to find her in the restroom on her own steam. This was paired with a marked weight gain. Turns out the nursing home food was sh*t so she just wasn't eating enough, but the hospice facility let her have salty, buttery pierogi and kielbasa again, so she started eating."
ilovelefseandpierogi
Excuse me, what?
"Patient here. When I was two I was being treated for asthma due to wheezing, labored breathing, etc. One night it got exceptionally bad so my mom took me to the ER. They put me face down to do a CT scan (this was 1990) and when they were done, they turned me back over and I was blue, had stopped breathing."
"CT revealed a volleyball-size mass in my chest. Emergency surgery revealed what was supposed to be my twin. It kept growing inside my rib cage and finally had nowhere to go in my toddler body so it cutoff my airway. It had fingernails, hair, appendages... everything but major organs. I made a full recovery. I am a healthy 31 year old now. Zero asthma. Only remnant of that night is a scar that goes from the center of my chest to the center of my back."
"Update: Definitely didn't expect this to blow up. Damn. Thanks for my first gold! This was a tera toma, so it was never a viable human. Edited the post to show that I am the healthy 31 year old. lol Anybody that quoted Dwight Schrute is my hero."
JuracekPark34
What a brave pup.
"Veterinarian. Dog hit by a train. It severed the dog's leg and the dog carried its own leg home. Owner brought dog and leg to the ER. Edit: leg could not be re-attaches due to significant damage to limb. Dogs do great as tripods though."
Total_D*ck_Move
GiphyA miracle recovery.
"Currently in residency, but this was a patient I saw in medical school:"
"This one has more to do with a patient's past medical history instead of anything acute. Had one patient in one of my internal medicine rotations who was admitted for hip surgery who was one of the nicest sweetest people I've ever met. Her surgery was pretty routine and there were no complications."
"In her past medical history, she was diagnosed with stage IV endometrial cancer that had spread to her brain. Apparently she had undergone chemo, radiation, primary tumor resection, and surgery to remove the brain met. She remained cancer free since that period. The fact that she had undergone that whole ordeal and appeared to be mostly healthy and was in remission from her cancer really blew my mind."
PMME_ur_lovely_boobs
Wow.
"A couple pictures of me before and after brain surgeries were on the front page around this time last year. The mortality rate for acute subdural hematomas is 50-90%. Of those who live, approximately 20-30% regain any brain functioning. Due to the subdural hematoma, the bleeding in my skull was so severe that I also had cranial herniation. My brain tilted 5 millimeters, causing my brain stem to compress into my spinal cord."
"That I not only lived, but woke up, and recovered well enough to go back to work/get married/travel the world/return to baseline physically is a straight up medical miracle. I'm still in touch with the neurosurgeon who was on call at the hospital that day, and he says the same thing."
QuiGonGiveItToYa
Unsave him.
"A guy I took care of during my residency... f*cking cyborg. I was the chief on trauma. Got a page about a patient en route with a stab wound to the chest. When the patient rolled into the trauma bay, he had no pulse. He had been stabbed in his left upper chest (3cm below clavicle)."
"He got an ER thoracotomy (if you want to feel like a bada**, then do an ER thoracotomy!!); we were able to cross-clamp his aorta; we took him right to the OR. We oversewed one small artery below his rib, then transported him to the ICU still intubated. Eight hours later he was extubated and wanting breakfast. Seriously, dude?!! He was dead 10 hours before. He was also a complete a**hole. No wonder someone stabbed him..."
k_thx_bye_
Nurse turns to the doctor, 'Can we unsave this one?'"
Genghis_Chong
GiphyWhat the hell?
"Lady in her mid 30s was in the clinic for a 1 week follow up post foot amputation (diabetes), she was admitted straight from the clinic because her blood glucose was 600mg/dl (normal is 80-120) and the wound was severely infected. We used super concentrated doses of insulin to bring it back to the 200s. She was on strict diet restrictions and we couldn't figure out how it wouldn't drop any lower than 250."
"Turns out her kids (teens) had been sneaking giant 64oz sodas and candy bars into the hospital, literally one week after we chopped her foot off because of uncontrolled diabetes. Not exactly a case of "how the f*ck did you survive that trauma/disease" but 'how the f*ck do you even function on your own?'"
F00FlGHTER
Such a bummer that he had to leave the party.
"Belligerent guy comes in, in a wheel chair. He doesn't want to be here, he's f*cking fine, the party was good (EMS) f*cked his evening up. EMS brought him in from a bush party, the guy had a chainsaw stuck in his thigh and shin. Literally jammed in his leg. And severe burns after falling into the bon fire on half his body."
"Guy was hammered, didn't seemed bothered by the fact he was severely burned or had a chain saw in his leg. He ended up losing the leg below his knee, and got a nasty infection from the burn. But still. If his leg wasn't completely f*cked, I am convinced he'd have gotten up and tried to fight people."
MisterMetal
The Cockroach
"During residency, my ICU patient had to have his chest reopened less than an hour after 6 hour open heart CABG surgery. He needed 12 units of blood, his heart massaged then shocked 4 times. Cardiothoracic surgeon in the ICU operating because no time to go back down to OR. Was an illicit drug abuser and alcoholic. Nurses called him the 'cockroach.' I checked in on him for 4 weeks. He was unresponsive every day."
"On week 2 zero we had to consult ENT. To take maggots. Out of his nose. I was sure he was a goner after that. Week 3 passed, no change. Week 4, day 24 I believe, at 6 am, he opens his eyes. I was shocked. He has a permanent trach and ostomy now, but somehow is alive."
novelgraphics
In Half
"I had a patient who was literally cut in half at the pelvis after a car hit him and pinned him to a telephone pole. Paramedics carried his legs in separately. He was wide awake and talking to me as we quickly put in a central line and he got all the bleeders ligated by like 5 different surgeons."
"He declined pain meds repeatedly, what a legend. He was in the OR 5 minutes later. Luckily this was at a major academic center with an exceptional trauma surgery team. Apparently the guy lived, not sure what his quality of life was after, but pretty crazy."
spiderinside
The Fallen
"I work in trauma and once had a guy fall off a roof he said he remembered hitting the bars on the scaffolding on the way down. We originally thought he'd fractured his femur but nope just a small hematoma. He was in bed next to a man who had broken his ribs and had a small C spine fracture when he fell forward picking up his keys."
WeAreThe_MusicMakers
Bad Romance
"EMT here. Brought in a PT who's (now former) girlfriend stabbed him in the face with a Chef's knife. The knife went through his right eye, missed his cranial cavity, and stopped about a mm from his brain stem. The X-ray was nuts. We showed everyone."
Seannj222
music video mv GIF by Lady GagaGiphyBones to Dust
"As a med student on my emergency rotation I had a guy brought in who had fallen off a 7th or 8th floor balcony and landed on his head. Essentially DOA and we couldn’t get a blood pressure when he got to the hospital. As a student my job was to basically stand to the side and squeeze the bajillion bags of blood that went into this dude."
"His cervical spine was essentially dust on the initial CT scan we got. I figured he probably wouldn’t have made it but about a month later I’m now on my ICU rotation and I see this guy awake and conscious. Pretty crazy."
axtothemax
Dead Center
"Obligatory not a doctor, but my dad is and he liked to tell us about the crazy shit he saw, this post made me think of one of those in particular. Huge guy, linebacker build, came into the trauma ward with a gunshot wound dead center of the chest. He could breathe fine and he had a pulse. So they did a chest Xray and found that the bullet had spent all its energy getting through this guys sternum and was just resting on his pericardium."
leftenant_sebastian
Immortal
"My mom's a doctor. I asked her about this when it came up on reddit:"
"When my mom was in her ER cycle during internship, man with police officers behind him came in the ER. The man was perfectly fine and walking, so my mom and her colleagues were confused. The officers showed them a picture of a crumpled metal piece, which was a car. It didn't look like a car at all, just metal trash."
"The officers told my mom and her colleagues that they rescued the patient from the car, which was lit on fire only a few seconds after they rescued him. The patient didn't have a single scar on him, was perfectly fine, and got his name around the hospital for being 'immortal.'"
Goodbye Now
"My sister was the patient, but every doctor who's gone thru her whole file has had this reaction. When when was 9 she fell around 35ft off a bluff and landed head first on bedrock. Shattered every bone in her skull. A very well known neuro surgeon took a look at her when she was brought in, said 'sorry there is absolutely nothing I can do for her."
"I'd say she had a 10% chance of surviving the night, say your goodbyes now.' 3 weeks in a coma, three months in an ICU, 6 months as an in-patient, she's still alive today. She has permanent damage of course, but holy cow can kids bodies recover from a lot."
glahtiguy
He Still Walks
"My Dad is 87, He had prostate, liver, bowel, colon and skin cancer. For the skin cancer he had lots of reconstructive surgeries. (His whole tibia region and the back of his hands.) Every year he has to have at least one skin lesion removed. He had a couple of heart attacks and then a sextuple bypass surgery. He also had a big pneumonia, a huge abscess and a small stroke. His Doctor wants to see him every 6 months. I think just to be amazed that he's still walking around."
sonia72quebec
Dead
"Type 1 diabetic in their 20s presented dead of DKA (unresponsive, no pulse, in VF). Multiple rounds of CPR, defibrillated, eventually stabilised in ICU. Self discharged immediately after being extubated less than 48h later."
luminousbawd
Excited Gratitude GIF by Lil JonGiphyMedical professionals have definitely seen things.
Want to "know" more?
Sign up for the Knowable newsletter here.
Never miss another big, odd, funny or heartbreaking moment again.
Redditor King_bob992 asked:
"Emergency service dispatchers, what is the scariest call you have ever gotten?"
You're definitely in the right profession.
"One of the first calls I ever took. Woman calls up and asks about the process of filing a restraining order. She discusses how her boyfriend has been abusive and controlling. Mid conversation the doorbell rings, she puts me on hold opens the door and I hear yelling."
"Guy barges in and starts beating on her and I'm sitting there helpless listening, because I didn't have her address yet. Luckily, I did have her name and within a few minutes we got her address and got help to her. She was pretty badly injured but lived, and he is still in jail."
"That call made me doubt myself and if I was in the right profession, but I stuck with it and it has been a very rewarding (though sometimes sad) profession."
Scary stuff.
"Not a dispatcher but a paramedic. But a man called, saying his mom had severe chest pains. So we head over to their address in a hurry. However, there was no mom, just the caller waiting for us and then robbing us at gun point saying be were going to kill us. He just wanted the drugs, but was quite shocking still."
"Always going through my mind when entering some shady neighbourhood."
GiphyThat's so heartbreaking.
"I work for a sheriff's office and a good friend of mine was a dispatcher. I stepped outside one day for a smoke and my buddy was standing there shaking and crying. I asked him what was wrong and he told me that he had just dispatched a call for his best friend."
"His friend was a former army sniper and had only been out for a few months. He was a volunteer fire fighter and was responding to a house fire, rolled the truck, and had beed decapitated. Guy had 5 young daughters."
fryamtheeggguy
A miracle.
"Call came in and was flagged as a frequent caller on the a** end of a very rural county. The dude was just screaming. We couldn't make out anything he was saying but we had his address and sent every available unit we had. After a while the screaming started to die down and his breathing got very labored. He wouldn't talk to us but he just kept muttering. After a few minutes we realized he was praying."
"Few minutes later deputy arrived on scene. Heard him check in on scene and also heard him on the line. First noise I heard was him vomiting. Turned out the dude had been working on his car and the lift collapsed. The guy wasn't under the car but was between it and a tree when the car started rolling. He was impaled on a branch and pinned between the tree and car."
"Dude lived. He's a quadriplegic but he's alive. First legit 911 call he ever made and everyone took their sweet time getting there because it was usually nonsense."
hatchethates84
Ouch.
"I am a emergency helicopter dispatcher so I get calls from EMS in rural areas. First question I always ask is, 'what is the closest city to the scene?' I swear 80% of these people do not know how to pronounce it correctly and 50% of them do not know how to spell it."
"One time this guy cut his d**k off on bath salts. When he came too he realized what he did and called us directly."
GiphyHow tragic.
"I worked as a jailer for a while after getting out of the Marines. We had a dispatcher who had 2 kids. Both boys one a POS that was always in jail the other younger troubled and riding a dangerous line. She got the call one night that her younger son got shot twice in a drug deal gone wrong at a public park where he was playing ball."
"He was dead before the helicopter got in the air most likely. The dispatch center was connected to the jail where she had to work less than 50 yards from the man who shot her son. She was pretty tore up."
Patrocitus
Chilling.
"Not EMS, but work for a domestic violence shelter that offers sexual assault services. Will never forget talking to this one woman, and her husband came home during the call and she must have dropped the phone in the process but then I could just hear her screaming and him yelling. That will stay with me forever I'm sure. I really wish we had been able to get her help before that happened. That is the worst call I've had. But I find it so hard when children call, just always breaks my heart."
cshpolysci29
Good for them for not pushing themselves.
"When I was younger, I applied to be a 911 operator for the city I was living in northern California. I got through most of their tests and interviews, which there were numerous. The pool of applicants was over 200 for about 8 positions. I got down to the last dozen applicants then they played some recordings for us."
"The recording I listened to was a young girl calling 911 from inside a closet. She was crying and hysterical saying that her dad was in the house with a gun and was going to kill her mom. You could hear the mother screaming in the background and the operator was really calm and collected. She got the little girl to keep her voice down and whisper and tried to keep her on the line. You could hear the gunshots in the background."
"I couldn't listen to it anymore. I didn't want to find out what happened next, so I don't know the outcome. I knew I couldn't handle that then. I don't think I could take something like that now."
huexolotl
GiphyHorrifying.
"There was an accident once on a somewhat busy state road here. An older couple in an suv pulled out onto the road without seeing a motorcyclist that was going well over 100 mph. He rear ended them, died instantly and plowed through the suv, landing halfway through the windshield. The suv flipped a couple times and landed on the passenger side, trapping the wife. Then it caught on fire."
"At my dispatch center we had 3 of us working at all times, and I don't even know how many 911 calls we instantly got when this happened. Dozens, I'm sure. After I sent the FD and they got on the way(this is a rural area and this intersection was probably a good ten minutes south of them), some bystanders managed to get the husband out of the suv but he died in the helicopter on the way to the hospital, I believe. The wife burned alive."
"Honestly the worst part was right after I dispatched the FD, one of the lieutenants on the biggest police department in my county happened to be driving through there with his family and he called 911. I'll never forget how panicked and frantic he was on that call. I had never heard any of our officers like that before, let alone one of the administrators. We were pretty friendly with all of them so it shook me up. After I hung up with him I just started sobbing."
nillah
The strength it must take to move past that...
"My sister works as a dispatcher. Her first week on the job, she had a man call in, saying he was going to kill himself. He told her that she couldn't do anything to change his mind; he was simply trying to let her know where he could be found. She heard the gunshot through the call."
"Second one, she had a little girl call in because her dad was unresponsive. She knew that CPR would likely save this man, but the daughter wasn't grown enough and didn't have the strength to perform it effectively. My sister had to tell her to leave the room, because the longer that girl stayed in there trying fruitlessly to save her father, the more scarred she would become by the experience of watching her father die."
m4cktheknife
Both are horrifying.
"Former 000 calltaker reporting in. Scariest one would have to be one of the very first calls I took while I was training. A young man rang up and it was evident from his voice that he was in shock. His exact words were 'I've just hit a motorbike rider who was coming around a blind bend on the wrong side of the road. I think I've killed him.'"
"From dealing with a few noise complaints to a car accident with a possible fatality was a massive switch, and this was only my second shift taking calls in training. The motorbike rider did not survive that accident."
Giphy"Second scariest would be when someone was working down a well and was overcome by generator fumes. His wife tried to rescue him but she fell off the ladder, injured herself as a result and was unable to help her husband. So there's one possibly dead male in the well and his wife is in danger of dying as well. And all of this is in a remote location that I am completely unfamiliar with. We didn't save the male. We did, however, manage to save his wife."
dexbydesign89
That's terrible.
"My answer from a similar thread:"
"The one that always sticks with me was the time I had to tell a father how to cut his 15 year old son down after he had hung himself. He was actively reciting reasons why he may have been a bad parent while doing it. I'll remember that until the day I die."
FireAlarmOp
Holy s**t.
"Obligatory posting on behalf of my mom. She answered 000 police emergency calls (Australian 911). The top two: A woman phoned up. She had a restraining order on her ex-husband, had come home to furniture moved positions inside the house."
"Whilst checking rooms she noticed handprints on the wall leading up to the roof cavity access point. This was slightly ajar. Mom tells her to leave. Woman decides nope, she's Dora the explorer and gets a chair. She stands on it, starts to lift the cover and it gets slammed back down. Yep, hubby in the roof. He'd been there a while (days)."
"2nd: a call comes in from a remote outback community. Someone's using a machete to stab their way into a door while laughing maniacally. There are no street addresses or house numbers to ID the location and the caller cannot give a location. Nearest police are 2 hours away. Mom just heard screaming, then gurgling, then silence then whistling."
ottersrus
Super anxiety-inducing.
"I was working at a small agency during a storm. We would work 1 person in dispatch per shift, as it was pretty common to go an entire overnight shift without a single call. The local hospital called and said 'A tornado just hit the hospital.' Turns out, the tornado dropped directly on top of the hospital, moves across the street to the college dorms and destroyed at least one of them. There must have been multiple 'naders because all of our phone lines lit up and everyone was saying a tornado just hit their house."
Giphy"The town close by had a couple fires, our paging system went down (meaning no paging out our volunteer fire guys, 3 officers in total for the entire f**king county, and all of our medics tied up at the hospital."
"The calls would go like this: 'Are you injured? Do you feel safe enough to drive yourself to the hospital?' If they said yes, I'd tell them to make their way to the staging area at the hospital, if no, I had to write it down and have one of the other agencies sending help to check on them."
"Luckily the college was on an extended weekend so hardly anyone was in the dorms. I still have anxiety issues when I'm at work when a storm hits."
Don't do drugs.
"My dad's friend got a call from a man who claimed there was an alien in his stomach. When they got to him they discovered he cut his own stomach open and took his insides outside. The knife was lying in his flesh next to the body. The man was high on some drugs."
lubie_chlebek
Too Sad
"A 3 year old was at a campground with her family and they let her out of their sight for 20 seconds and she wandered down to a creek and drowned. Her mom found her and her father called in. While I was getting details from the understandable distraught father, a random guy camping there was doing CPR managed to resuscitate her. I can't imagine how her parents felt, but it was like physical weight being lifted off of me."
crathis
Pain in the moment...
"Was a 911 operator for 10 years. Scariest is probably different than worst. My scariest was an active shooter in a high rise. Just sitting on the line trying to give the best directions so every one makes it out okay."
"When I first started out, I worked for a rural county and some areas were very far from help. One night I got a call from a group of people who were in a3m accident and their car caught fire. The girl I was speaking with was stuck in her seatbelt and as the fire spread she was in terrible amounts of pain."
"She kept begging me to send help and I was but it was far away. I stayed with her until the phone dropped (assumingly the phone and it melted or malfunctioned). The other was a hanging."
"The father called me for a welfare check and I was putting in the call when he got to the house. He said the door was unlocked, so I stayed landline while he went inside and he found his son. The pain in the moment he walked out and told his wife was so horrible and raw."
allaboutthatpuc
Terror
"I think the most genuine terror comes from child callers. I had this 5 year old call in that her dad was growling and wouldn't wake up. Ok agonal breathing, probably a heart attack scrambling to get a confirmed address for ems, pd dispatched to unconfirmed address."
"Finally confirm the address and start giving directions on CPR. Nope she will not touch him because she is scared then bursts into tears. Luckily pd arrived just after she refused and they were able to do CPR until EMS arrived."
oneofthesesigns
CPR instructions and he kept screaming...
"911 dispatcher here for a large city. I get a little bit of everything and mostly it's BS. But one that stuck with me was something recently. A man called in frantic and it was really hard to get him to calm down. He told me his 35 year old girlfriend was unresponsive and not breathing."
Season 5 Nbc GIF by The OfficeGiphy"I immediately started giving this guy CPR instructions and he kept screaming 'I'm sorry I'm sorry my love.' Tough morning for the guy no doubt. It hit me that he could have been responsible or the last thing he ever said to her was not pleasant. Never followed up on the call. In this line of work, it's on to the next one."
"Too busy to think about it. I have millions of people depending on me not to let the last call effect the next one. I don't know what happened other than she was a DOA. Didn't hit me until the next day. My God, that scream was deafening. All i know is there was more to the story, I could hear it in his voice."
"P.S. I've heard people shot in real time, parents trying to revive their dead kids first thing in the morning, but this for some reason hit me."
.DNastythenasty
On the Roof
"There's a guy up here on the roof. He was wandering around in a daze and not responding to me. He's got his shirt off and he's sitting on top of the parking garage with his legs over the edge and he's rocking back and forth. He's covered in blood."
"Vehicle pursuits aren't fun either."
Dr_Frasier_Bane
On the Porch
"Heard this story from a cop I knew. Guy calmly calls 911 to report a man standing on his front porch with a shotgun. Police arrive at the address provided to find a man in his 50s standing on the porch as described in the call. They take cover and prepare to shoot if man decides to open fire. Man points gun to his own face, cops realize what was going on, but it happened too quickly for them to intervene. That man on the porch was the one who called."
the_one_with_no_face
scared famous smile GIF by VH1GiphyDispatchers seriously aren't paid enough.
Do you have any experiences to add? Let us know in the comments below.
u/triggeredrat_59 asked:
[SERIOUS] Doctors of Reddit, What was the saddest death you have experienced in the hospital?
Here were some of those stories. Trigger Warnings: death, blood and guts, violence.
